Swiss airs and African breasys (1)14 Jun 2013 23:19
From soorgoolietimes.com
"Swiss airs and African breasys" (Part 1)
When Lonrho announced the African easyHotel franchise two years ago, it promised "an agreed opening schedule for fifty properties by 2016." The RNS continued, "The opening schedule will focus on African destinations already served by easyJet." [sic] Investors were suitably impressed and the shares rose.
On the BBs a well-established discussion pattern developed. The shares charted predictably. Two years on, it's more of the same old story from Lonrho - another great story that spectacularly fails to deliver.
The present results are - ONE hotel in a destination about 11,000km from the nearest served by easyJet. [Similar to the Lonrho BOD's precision with profit targets.] The solitary hotel was not even in the country announced nine weeks later, Mozambique, where Lonrho spent about $10m (RNS4695P) acquiring land and buildings. Nor, when they jumped 1,300km to Johannesburg, did they open in the place they announced and signed a lease for.
Lonrho eventually opened their first easyHotel a mile away from the Johannesburg site they had leased. The fate of that site, in the iconic former Stuttafords building, remains a mystery. In April 2012, Lonrho signed a 30 year lease for part of it yet now appears to be paying for nothing. The agent involved, AFHCO, still lists the building on their website. Contacting them, the first respondent said that it was not listed. Confronted with the weblink she referred the call to a colleague that did not pick up. Subsequent calls to AFHCO were not returned.
This March, Stuttafords' exterior was spruced up with a coat of paint. It's presently unclear how much of the further cost has been split with leaseholder Lonrho and the agent. Certainly Lonrho's painting budget was underspent on their eventual maiden location. The hotel, formerly owned by a students' accommodation collective, already used the easyGroup orange.
As the sun, supposedly, sets on Lenigas's involvement in Lonrho, and now fastjet, fellow tax-dodging Monaco resident neighbour Stelios may well have grounds to rue his involvement with the Perth 'bodybuilder.'
kibu
TBC
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